UPDATE



Hi. This is an old, unmaintained blog. You may find these sites more to your liking:

Carson Brackney: This is my primary site.

Ad Astra Traffic: Content production/article writing service.

Ad Astra Traffic Team: For those who'd like to get writing gigs with Ad Astra.


Friday, December 16, 2005

Plagiarized content can ruin a day...

I was finishing the editing on some of the content I purchased from other providers. There was something about one of the articles that just felt "different." I had already checked everything (so I thought) through Copyspace, but I just had a hunch that something was amiss with one of the articles.

So, I quickly googled a phrase that seemed to be from another voice. Sure enough, I found it (and a lot more of the article in question) was lifted from other sources verbatim. I must have somehow neglected to run that particular article through Copyspace or something.

Now, I feel the need to go back through each and every article in the bundle and double-check for any other content misappropriation.

It's obvious to me what happened. The writer, in an effort to meet her deadline, decided to cut a few corners on one of the last articles. Either she didn't think it would be noticed or she lacks an understanding of the seriousness of the matter. She's relatively new to the content writing world, so I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in terms of her intent. I am not willing to say this offense had the sufficient level of mens rea to warrant regarding her as a crooked dealer. It is, however, very frustrating and it is going to add to my workload.

You would think that if any group of people would be hypersensitive to content misappropriation and outright plagiarism it would be content writers. I, for one, take the matter more seriously than virtually any component of my business. I am willing to stake my reputation on the fact that every word I type for a client will be mine. That's not just for the clients' sake, either. Plagiarism hurts the content writing industry as a whole.

I plan on addressing just why content writers must take a strong stand for the sake of their very profession at some point. In the meantime, I'd like this post to serve as a reminder to everyone buying content to make sure they don't end up with stolen work.

Use Copyscape. Google phrases that just don't "seem to fit." Take it seriously and don't let any freelance content writer get away with sliding you stolen goods. It's bad for a client's business and it's bad for the writing industry, too.